RUTLAND, Vt. — Marble quarries known the world over once attracted immigrants to this small city tucked beside the Green Mountains. Now, a simple quest for peace and safety is beckoning a new group.

Mayor Christopher Louras has unveiled a plan, developed in near-secrecy, to resettle 100 Syrian refugees who fled the onslaught of the Islamic State and are exiled in sprawling Jordanian camps.

If approved by the State Department and others, the resettlement would begin in October and gradually send Rutland more Syrian refugees than are currently living anywhere else in New England.

The influx would be a jolt of instant cultural diversity for Rutland, where there are no mosques and no other Syrian immigrants. Most residents appear ready to welcome the refugees, mindful of the harrowing images of Syrians desperately seeking refuge outside their ravaged country.

“They have nowhere to live,” said Jerry Dubeau, a 59-year-old who supports the move. “That’s what this country is all about. We’re all from somewhere else.”

But mingled with good wishes has been a touch of fear, and simmering anger that the decision was made behind closed doors.

“Their culture is different than ours. Their world is just different than ours,” said Chris Kiefer-Cioffi, a selectwoman in a neighboring town who worked for 27 years on the Rutland police force.

Some residents have asked whether the refugees would be inoculated, others have wondered whether a terrorist could infiltrate the group, and still more have questioned what the dollars-and-cents costs will be for caring for people arriving with little but their clothes.

Months-long discussions about whether to invite the Syrians were limited to the mayor, a small circle of city and business leaders, and a nonprofit resettlement agency. The president of the Board of Aldermen, who knew about the effort, did not tell his colleagues until a day or two before Louras announced the plans at an April 26 news conference.

“There was no benefit to anyone to spread the knowledge,” William Notte, the aldermen president, said in an interview.

Louras made no apologies for excluding the public from the planning.If the proposal had been floated earlier, the mayor said, the debate would have become “about them” — meaning the Syrians, their culture, and possible links to terrorism — instead of whether the city had the means to accommodate the refugees.

Once the logistical questions were quietly answered, Louras said, the timing was right for an announcement in this city of 16,500 people, which is 95 percent white and overwhelmingly of Eurpoean ancestry.

“I own it. I took the hits, and I’ll continue to take the hits,” Louras said recently at a downtown pig roast, where he helped dish out the pork to benefit a children’s museum.

Giving the refugees a home here will put Rutland on the right side of history, the mayor and Notte said.

“The benefits, economically and culturally, that we will recognize is exactly what the community needs at this time,” said Louras, the grandson of a Greek immigrant who fled the Ottoman Turks a century ago. “As much as I want to say it’s for compassionate reasons, I realize that there is not a vibrant, growing, successful community in the country right now that is not embracing new Americans.”

The mayor’s strategy of keeping the plan quiet is supported by the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, which is a field office of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. The program’s executive director, Amila Merdzanovic, called the hidden talks “the right thing to do — to move slowly, keep it to a small circle of people, and then expand.”

Merdzanovic, in e-mails obtained by the Rutland Herald, had stressed the importance of secrecy all along.

“I cannot emphasize enough the importance of not sharing the information, even if it is confidentially,” she wrote April 10 to the director of the State Refugee Office.

In an April 14 e-mail to the mayor, Merdzanovic said that her headquarters was worried about scheduling a public forum.

“If we open it up to anybody and everybody, all sorts of people will come out of [the] woodwork,” she wrote. “Anti-immigrant, anti-anything. They suggest that the forum be invite-only but make it as wide as possible.”

Now that the plan is in the open, public sentiment appears solidly positive. At a recent hearing at City Hall, supporters outnumbered opponents, 2 to 1.

And for the foes? “Those concerns are based in fear,” Louras said. “When educated, those fears will be abated.”

Note the supposed overwhelmingly positive sentiment and acceptance of Muslim refugees in this small town? Don’t believe the hype. As Refugee Resettlement Watch writes, just as the decision to Islamize the city of Rutland was predetermined, so too is the blatant media propaganda. It’s called the Delphi Technique!

…a system first developed over 50 years ago that is used now to direct the outcome of a public meeting to a pre-determined conclusion.

Federal refugee contractors, like the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program operate in secrecy making every effort to get resettlement programs up and running in unsuspecting communities before the general public gets wind of it!

Of course they want no public meeting!
They know they must get the program in place before anyone knows what is happening! Readers, look for this happening where you live. They are desperate for more cities and towns. Obama has made promises and there aren’t enough locations to accommodate all of the refugees he wants.

BTW, Merdzanovic’s boss is Lavinia Limon who ran the Office of Refugee Resettlement for Bill Clinton.

Vermont is a Wilson-Fish statewhich means the contractor and the federal government run the program there with no input from elected state representatives. There is zero chance that the present governor would ever stand up for States’ Rights.

Ok, so this is Bernie Sanders’ territory! What else would we expect from his cronies??? Guaranteed, there won’t be any more ‘pig roasts’ in Rutland, once these g-damned know-it-alls get their clutches on the menu!!! Sad thing, NOBODY BUT NOBODY has the BIG ONES to stand up to this TRAITOR/ mayor!!! Let’s face it, in less than 20 years New England will almost definitely be an islamic caliphate–IF INDEED ANY OF US LIVE THAT LONG! Thankfully, I probably won’t….. God grant us the courage not to go down w/o a fight…..

Ok then, btw, is that City Hall pictured behind this TRAITOR/ mayor??? Well, not for nothin’, but aren’t those CROSSES that I see, forming the frames of the windows???? Guaranteed, time of a bulldoze job there… Can’t have any remnants of the indigenous Christian people, ya know!!!!

No they’re not ….. a Greek mayor who’s family fled the massacre most likely at Smyrna where the Turks burned the entire city and only a few residents survived. Residents … all of them were forced into the ocean and only a few survived……… my best friends grandmother was one and her entire ….. entire family was murdered…. that means immediate and all cousins, aunts, uncles etc……. oh you can thank Catholic Charities for they are the non profit behind all this… for the most part.

The resettlement group of course want it to go through as they get paid for each one but it will be interesting to see in 5 months what the population is feeling about it. Do the schools have room? Are translators available? What is the welfare rate there? The crime rate? Housing availability? Europe is having trouble with them not even knowing how to use a toilet properly.

thare are not 100 places to put them in the tiny town; guess they can bunk with the mayor. oh my is he ever an idiot and so is anyone else who falls for the islam crap. the term islamophone was created by the muslims to deter from their TRUE agenda. folks, u need to read all of the muslim brotherhood project as it’s working in your city right now. unfortunately, you will soon be a no go zone like dearborn, mi.
how sad. does the city have enough money to support totally these cretins? not likely. you have definitely opened a HUGE can of worms.

during the 1000 days of vetting, that will give more than enough time for the muzzies to take over your city and it will NEVER be the same. pretty damned stupid thing; but money talks and bullshit walks; otherwise the resettlement liars wouldn’t be in that business.

My Lord, what ever was that huge shining star lighting up the northern sky this morning??? Why, I DO believe it must have been VERMONT!!!! It would seem as though the inhabitants there have finally achieved a special type of unparalleled enlightenment! Word has it that ALL the newly arrived (and previously arrived) MUZZLUM immigrants are calling out to their neighbors, asking them, “Oh most great and wise American, please show me the way in which I can humbly and most graciously learn to ASSIMILATE into your American culture and religion.” I most assuredly could never possibly thank you enough for showing me that ISLAM is false and BLOODY religion. OH WHAT THE HELL–it was just a dream!!! BTW, can anybody in Vermont say the words–USEFUL IDIOTS????

It has nothing to do with them being Muslim. I live in Rutland. It is dirt poor and the heroin capital of the USA. You can call us a tiny town but we have big city problems. There are no jobs here other than the drug trade. Every time a business tries to come here it is stopped to protect some moth or something where they were to build. We don’t have jobs for four whites Our schools have no money to help our own kids forget adding students who need extra help. I know your site is about it being Muslims and there are all these Bernie comments but I wanted you to know that’s not what its about here. It’s about not having anyway to support our citizens now without adding new people. Also we were left out of the decision.

@Rutland citizen. Ok, so who the hell actually believes that shipping a boatload of muslims into your failing economy is going to solve any problems–muslims that, btw, speak no English, refuse to assimilate, and consider a blood-thirsty child rapist their prime example of a “holy” man???? Seems to me that a lot of lefty-liberal feminists and pro-abortionists shoulda given some thought about a declining American work force back some 40 or 50 years ago!!! Americans (and Westerners in general) are the dumbest bunch of RETARDS that ever came down the block! We kill off all of our natural-born offspring and heritage and then we ship in a bunch of foreigners WHO HATE US in an attempt at equalizing the declining population and failing economy!!!!! Yeah, there ya go….

“Unreal City”! Did anybody note the irony of the traitor-mayor proclaiming his propaganda or ignorance, EVEN AS he barbeques–PORK? He better do it while he can, a wise websight said: “If sharia law continues spreading, you’ll have less and less freedom of any kind, including unnatural contact with porcine elements (no Jews or apes allowed either).” Okay, NOT FUNNY but NONE of it is. “Is this the way anyone imagined how America–the furthest development of political-governmental civilization, is to Go Down? Seems so…

Nov 22, 1963 was the biggest coup in history and they did it right in front of the entire country………. that is when this all began… make no mistake! This country has been systematically degraded. Our enemies didn’t give up after ww2… they came at us from with in.

Yeah, I guess that means no more ‘pigs in a blanket’ either. I just wonder about ‘Piggy banks’ and the ‘Porky Pig’ cartoons–hmmm, good-bye Miss Piggy! Oh geez! Anybody think it’s about time to have a huge PIG PARADE? I hear the muzzies are paranoid of pigs! Hey, I’LL LEAD THE PARADE!!!!! WHO’S IN?????

Really the people for it out number the people who dont? I live here and trust me more people are against this he stacked the room with his do gooders. He violated the city charter and we the people are trying to do something about it. This is not over we are looking into every ave. to stop this. We have a petition going and trust me I am going door to door because here in Rutland we have to do it that way. This is going to bankrupt this small city just watch and see..

@Anon. Well, I’m on your side, Anon. Hope you can get your neighbors to fight this Obama-nation! BTW, tell your neighbor, Jerry Dubeau, to take a double drink of that purple cool-aid–I hear its laced with lotsa goodies like the hallucinogenics that he’s obviously already on…..

You stupid fucking hics are talking about hanging and shooting people you don’t even know, and you say the Muslims are dangerous. You people are sick in the head and clearly uneducated. If you’re so scared of the Muslims, why don’t you board yourselves up inside your trailers. You give Vermonters a bad name.

I wouldn’t place any bets on your IQ being above a 25! Seems like you’re ‘well-educated’ about ‘trailers’ and dumb ‘hics’ and such! BTW, you give “Americans” a bad name by blogging with the name “Merica”! Take a hike, TROLL! Maybe the muzzies could use you for a suicide bomber–they love to convert stupid ‘American’ know-it-alls, ya know? You guys make the best blow-up targets ’cause you swallow EVERYTHING that the imams feed you–hook, line and sinker!!!

if you like them so uch invite them into your home,or are you a hypocrite liberal pos thatrefers to anybody disagreeing with them as uneducated and scared.we are gonna hang you traitors along with your muslim buddies so pick a side asshole.you are obviously sucking a muslims dick call me a stupid hic and ill knock your ass out.

I can’t even believe the amount of ignorance that is coming out of a state that I absolutely adore. This kills me, “Louras made no apologies for excluding the public from the planning. If the proposal had been floated earlier, the mayor said, the debate would have become “about them” — meaning the Syrians, their culture, and possible links to terrorism — instead of whether the city had the means to accommodate the refugees., ” are freaking out of your ignorant mind?! the two have NOTHING in common! They are Syirian reffugees with possible ties to terrorism. of COURSE your little town has more than enough to accomodate regugees from a third world country but this is nothing like what he is expecting. And I hope he gets harsh awakening by this. God protect the innocent children and people that just want to live peacfully but this person deserves what he gets.